


It was Madness

by PurpleFluffyCat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Forbidden, Power Dynamics, Sexual Tension, Sneaking Around, Teacher-Student Relationship, Teasing, Unresolved Sexual Tension, talking about sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:08:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26149219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleFluffyCat/pseuds/PurpleFluffyCat
Summary: “Not my bed, nor yours. A place where we can be together, and apart from the expectations of the world. We can leave ourselves behind at the door. Meet me tonight.”
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Minerva McGonagall
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31
Collections: Rare Pair Shorts - Summer Wishlist Event 2020





	It was Madness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sportivetricks (tamlane)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamlane/gifts).



> Written for sportivetricks, in the Rare Pair Shorts Summer 2020 Wishlist Event.

_It was madness._ That was the only thing he could think, as his legs, unyielding, powered him on through the dark corridors. His pulse raced and his palms prickled. His breath – usually so deep and assured – came in shallow gasps from the back of his throat.

Albus was climbing the staircases, now – third floor, fourth, fifth. 

Of course, he was allowed to go wherever he pleased at night-time. Indeed, he could just turn this whole thing into a regular patrol; that’s what he could do. He could just stop, turn around and go back to his rooms; save his reputation and his conscience. Yes; that’s what he _should_ do.

And, yet…

It had happened late that evening, in the reading nook off the main Library. He had seen Minerva in the usual place, bent over a book, and he’d moved across to speak to her, his pace quickening unconsciously through the dusty stacks, and his heart doing that little somersault to which it didn’t quite admit. The library had been dark and deserted; even Cuthbert had called it a night.

He had approached her with a wide smile, but as his footsteps had neared, Albus had realised that Minerva was quite asleep, face laid peacefully in her arms atop a venerable tome. 

Just half a pace away, he had stilled, reason suspended, unable to tear himself away from the sight of her lips relaxed into a perfect Cupid’s bow and the candlelight playing across her eyelashes. About her face had danced a few stray hairs – Scottish frizz standing proud; glinting for him. 

Unbidden, Albus’ hand had moved to caress those unruly strands; she was asleep; she’d never feel it. He had reached out with the gentlest of touches – not even taking a breath lest it break the exquisite, guilty peace – but somehow his care had not been careful _enough_ … for she had stirred and turned and stood in one fluid motion, and his hand – caught _red-handed_ – had been enveloped into an embrace, and then he hadn’t been able to summon the presence of mind to move it away from the back of her head, cradling softly there as she had leaned into the touch, his little finger grazing the nape of her neck.

Minerva had looked him in the eye and smiled; almost smirked. She’d been close; so close he saw her pupils gambol as she scanned his expression.

Albus had tried to speak, but instead he’d just felt his lips part dumbly. Sensing that, almost revelling in it, Minerva had raised a hand to his face, fingers resting lightly on his cheekbone as one salacious thumb ran across his bottom lip. 

“Meet me in the Room of Requirement,” she had said. “Not my bed, nor yours. A place where we can be together, and apart from the expectations of the world. We can leave ourselves behind at the door. Meet me tonight.”

Albus had swallowed hard and found himself nodding. He’d been frozen, but every hair alight; he could never have refused.

With that, Minerva had detached herself, Accioed her books and left, leaving Albus staring after her. “I’ll be there from midnight,” she’d added, over her shoulder.

…And now he found himself walking through the seventh floor trying not to look furtive, his mind spiralling away into bliss and devastation. 

A few coats of armour creaked and turned as he passed, palms sticky now, imaging their judgement. Albus had never thought of a student in this way, before. _Merlin_ he hadn’t had those sorts of thoughts about _anybody_ , not since…

He pushed that thought away, still too painful – even now, even when there were streaks of grey in his fiery locks and medals on his breast. He should have grown past _that_ , decades ago, rather than burying and hiding and retreating into scholarly hermitude.

But now… perhaps he had? Or at least, his heart – idiotic as ever – was making its best attempt at leading him into another rapturous, impossible situation. His best pupil. Gryffindor’s precocious misfit. The girl who occupied most of his waking thoughts and many of his sleeping ones, too.

He had to confess: he wanted her. He wanted her very badly. He, Albus Dumbledore, the heroic, the stoic, the celibate. He wanted her bright eyes, her slender waist, her young lips on his flesh. He wanted her alertness, her cleverness, her unjadedness. He wanted her eagerness and her heat, and that amazing look of promise that he was somehow interesting and worthwhile, and more than a washed-up war hero with a guilty past.

They had never spoken of it before today – not in words, at least. Instead, theirs was the language of lingering looks, of drawn-out pleasantries, of thin excuses to inhabit the same space in liminal, fleeting, in-between times. He lived for those moments, now – before and after classes, ‘accidental’ encounters in corridors, patrolling the library when she would be there – always there, always in a tucked-away corner – when he could stop and ‘happen’ to find her, and they could ‘happen’ to spend hours pretending that nothing was unusual about that magnetism that couldn’t stop them talking, and laughing, and teasing one another, and exchanging looks so molten he had to wank himself sore when he got back to his rooms, pretending it was her.

And now it might be happening; it might be real. Albus stopped in his tracks for a moment, light-headed and surrounded by flames and rainbows. 

It was wrong; of course it was wrong. 

…But was it? Was it _really_? In the _circumstances_ , that is. 

Albus knew that many found his arguments very compelling, and he could be compelled by then too, if he tried. 

Indeed, even if it _was_ wrong, was now really the definitive moment? Had they not already passed that bound? Those long afternoons together, drinking in each other’s spirit, sharing their own secret parlance: surely that's where the real indiscretion lay, and that was long established. It was cemented and dammed. Or damned; Albus could not be sure. Meeting her now in the dark was only the honest result of all that; the logical conclusion; the natural path. 

What was a kiss, a touch, a caress? What difference would it make if he were to express the regard that he so clearly felt for her, with his mind and his body? Surely that would only be fair and truthful… and who could be blamed for acting on such noble feelings?

It was no sophistry; hastening to Minerva now felt more sincere than anything on earth. He _needed_ her; had to have her. And the most intoxicating thing of all, was that she wanted him, too.

Albus arrived at the Room, both resolute and a molten mess. It was just past midnight; the starlight gleamed through the leaded lights, complicit in its stillness. He pressed down the handle and cracked open the door, wondering what he would find within.

The Room had become a bedchamber softly lit with candles – comfortable but not ostentatious. Indeed, Albus would never have thought that there would be a force in such a room to render him speechless: 

“You came.” The statement was confident; tantalising.

Minerva gave a knowing smile that was old and wise, and looked somehow strange upon her young face – as if the maiden, mother and crone had all taken up residence there and were together looking at him, appraising him, daring him on.

His accolades and responsibilities were all stripped away, now. He was bare; naked; vulnerable – open and desperate and throwing himself to her, like a stone hurled into the Great Lake. Soon he would be sinking, sinking, drowning in bliss and bad ideas, surrendered to the siren calls beneath the surface.

Some part of Albus’ brain screamed at him that he could save himself, yet: assume the Professorial role; order her back to her dormitory and declare that he would not have expected the Head Girl to be creeping around after curfew.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

Not when she was wearing nightclothes that revealed her shoulders and a hint of collarbone. Nothing brash, but a fine cotton lawn that clung to the curves of her breasts and bottom and made his mouth go dry.

Minerva moved toward him, and an invisible force pulled Albus forward until they were just a pace apart. He still hadn’t even managed a ‘good evening’, but Minerva spoke again, as admirable in her grasp of the situation as she was in so very many things. “I find that I think about you a lot,” she started, “As a Professor. As a friend, if that’s alright,” – Albus was just about to open his mouth to say, ‘why, yes, of course! And I, you,’ when she went on: “and most decidedly, as a man.” 

Her gaze was assured. Not cocky, but clear, and oh, so alluring in its clarity. 

And with that, Albus broke. 

Days, and months and _decades_ of stoppered desire were unleashed as he crushed his lips to hers and she responded fiercely, sealing their pact. His hands and her hands became one of the same as they roamed across backs, along sides and through luxuriant hair, pulling and tousling and needing somehow to be closer, still.

His erection was pressed between their bodies, throbbing and desperate. After long minutes, Minerva broke the kiss, and stroked up the length of his shaft with slow and deliberate fingers. 

When she spoke again, it was quiet and coiled tight. “I want to feel you, _everywhere._ ”


End file.
